Stable
by overtired
Summary: Modern AU. Robin loses more than just his memories after surviving a hit and run accident. On realistic amnesia, and living with disability. Eventual ChromxM!Robin. Following the 30 Day OTP Challenge prompts.
1. Holding hands

This is following the prompts for the 30 day OTP challenge, but not the 30 day part. The chapters will be chronological and follow an overarching plot, like a regular story.

I've been posting this to my Tumblr, thought it was about time it came here as well. I would really love some more feedback on this.

* * *

"I'm home!" Chrom announced as he opened the door to his apartment.

..._Their_apartment. He still tended to think of it as _his_ apartment even though he had a roommate now, of sorts.

He kicked off his motorcycle boots, leaning on the nearby counter of the kitchenette for balance, and threw them into the closet by the front door, his helmet and jacket following them soon after. It was a compact apartment, and one that Chrom, not being the most neat person by nature, sometimes struggled to keep tidy.

"Hi Chrom," came a slightly muffled voice from the couch.

"Hey Robin," Chrom answered, dropping his book bag on the floor against the wall and moving into the combined living and dining room; the couch, television, and coffee table competing for space with the kitchen table and chairs. "How're you doing?"

"Fine." Robin's head of short white hair was nestled into his elbow, which was draped on the armrest, the television remote balanced on his lap. Only one eye was open to watch the television screen, on which the giant sea-monster Grima was terrorizing the city of Ylisstol for what must have been the fiftieth time. The volume was turned down low, making the little tinny screams of the city people and the monster's roars mere background noise.

Robin looked suspiciously comfortable, Chrom thought.

"Have you been sleeping?" he asked with a grin.

" 'Mm just resting," Robin mumbled. Chrom chuckled.

Robin's quad cane stood beside the couch, the canvas bag hanging from the curved handle containing, among other things, a pencil and a notebook that had Robin's schedule for the day. Robin was rather forgetful—the people Chrom had talked to at the hospital said it was a side effect of his injuries—and Chrom had found that Robin functioned better when the things he needed to remember to do were written down.

Chrom turned off the TV and took out the notebook, glancing down the list. One unchecked item on it made him frown.

"Did you eat yet today?" he asked.

Robin grunted.

"Is that a no?" Chrom prompted.

"I'm not hungry," Robin insisted.

"It's important that you eat," Chrom scolded.

"Makes me nauseous," said Robin, in his usual slow, labored manner of speaking. Supposedly, when he came off the powerful painkillers he was taking at the moment, speech was going to become easier for him.

"You'll feel worse if you don't eat," said Chrom sternly. "Don't you remember the last time you wouldn't eat anything? Do you wanna get sick again?"

Robin didn't answer but buried his face fully into his elbow, in what Chrom thought was rather in the manner of a guilty child being confronted. It was almost a little... cute?

Chrom sighed. "Tell you what," he told Robin, "I'll make you one of your stupid peanut butter jelly sandwiches for lunch if you promise you'll eat next time you're by yourself. Okay?"

"Okay," said Robin reluctantly into his sleeve.

The kitchenette's single florescent light didn't illuminate things very well, and when Chrom stood in front of the counter, his body blocked the light slightly. But he didn't need much light for what he was doing at the moment. He took a single plate out of the cabinet—they were running low, he would need to do the dishes soon—and set it on the counter with a clatter before retrieving the other tools of sandwich-making destruction.

"Do you remember how this was all you would eat for the first whole, like... week?" he asked Robin, who was only some ten feet away, as he laid two slices of bread down.

"Not really," he heard Robin answer. Looking through the space between the hanging cabinets and the counter, he could only see Robin's arm slung over the side of the couch and above that, the top of his head.

"Well, you wouldn't touch anything else after you first woke up," said Chrom, spreading the budget brand peanut butter. "I kept telling you that _you_ were gonna turn into a peanut butter jelly sandwich." He chucked a little at the memory.

"Hmm," came Robin's voice.

Chrom finished making the sandwich— with extra jelly, like how Robin liked it— and, deciding that it looked rather tasty, resolved to make another one for himself.

"The doctors and nurses and stuff weren't happy with you," Chrom remarked as he prepared the second sandwich. "Said it was an unbalanced diet. But at least peanut butter has protein. And stuff. I guess."

Robin grunted.

Chrom finished the second sandwich and carried the plate back over to the couch. It wasn't worth the work to move Robin to the table just to eat a sandwich; walking with the cane was a slow and difficult task for him, even with Chrom's help. The doctors had said that with practice, Robin would get better at walking eventually. Hopefully.

"Feels like that was forever ago, but I guess it was just a few weeks, huh?" Chrom commented with a chuckle. It felt like it had been so much longer since Robin had entered his life so dramatically, but it had all happened in under a month. He set the plate on the coffee table before circling back to the kitchen to get them something to drink. "The one on the left is yours," he told Robin.

Chrom swung the refrigerator door open. The breakfast he had prepared ahead of time for Robin before heading to his class, a pre-sliced apple and a couple of already peeled hard-boiled eggs, were bound together with plastic wrap and bore the helpful label _Robin's Breakfast_ on a sticky note— Chrom had found just labeling it _Breakfast_ or even _Your Breakfast_ wasn't always enough to convince Robin that it was his and that he was supposed to eat it. The apple was probably no good by now, but perhaps Chrom would be able to get Robin to eat the eggs for dinner...

"Which side is the left?" Robin asked from the living room, and Chrom paused.

"Um..." Chrom looked over his shoulder and could see Robin staring down at the plate of sandwiches. "It's the side that... Uh..." He struggled to find an easy way to put it. "The side... Your side that's... the stronger side."

"Oh. Okay."

It never ceased being strange or even downright jarring, no matter how many times it happened, when— regardless of how many times he'd been taught— Robin forgot which side was his right or which side was his left, or the proper way to hold a pencil, or how to read an analog clock, or any other manner of things that should have come as second nature to any adult; but then there he was, asking Chrom for help...

Chrom returned to the sofa with two cans of coke, sitting heavily on the cushion next to Robin. He popped the tabs for both their sodas; Robin lacked the finger dexterity to do it himself. He was currently meticulously biting off the crust of the sandwich in a circle, holding the sandwich in his left hand, the right hand tightened in a fist and the arm curled up beside his chest.

"Here's your soda," Chrom said, after Robin didn't take the one he held out for him. Robin followed his cue this time and put his sandwich in his lap to take the cold, sweating can from Chrom.

"Don't—Don't try to hold that in your other hand," Chrom said suddenly, after Robin had taken a sip and was visibly pondering how to hold it and keep eating his sandwich at the same time. "Let me hold it."

He gently pried the can out of Robin's fingers before Robin could attempt to switch the soda to his lame hand, the back of which was still covered in thick black scabs that refused to heal— Chrom couldn't get Robin to stop picking at it when left by himself. Robin didn't have much control over that hand, or indeed, the right side of his body in general; and there had already been a few drops and spills from when Robin had tried to put something in that hand anyway.

The doctors had said it was something about him being injured on the left side of his brain. That it was called hemi... hemi-something... something-paralysis? Chrom didn't remember, or really understand how it worked, how an injury on one side of his head disabled him on the opposite side of his body. But whether he understood the reason behind it or remembered what it was called; that wasn't what was important...

He put Robin's can of soda down on the table and began eating his own sandwich as Robin resumed nibbling on his, and they sat together in silence for a while, eating their lunches.

He was on Robin's left side; the side with the scar on his head. Chrom's eyes kept being drawn to it. It was a dark, erratic line carved deep into his skin, with bubbled flesh and indents where staples used to be, a place where just-regrowing white hair, hair that had been cut short all around to match where the surgeons had shaved him, still would not tread.

It wasn't pretty. But at least it wasn't an open gash pouring blood anymore, like when they first met, when Chrom's motorcycle headlight first fell upon the dark shape on the side of the back country road that wasn't an animal, or a tarp, or a pile of trash— when the blood spread across the dirt and the dispatcher on the phone told him not to try applying pressure on the head wound and told him to take deep breaths when he screamed at her what the hell was he supposed to do and how could she sound so damn _calm_— but she couldn't see the way this man was twitching and how the tears were running down the side of his face and mixing with the blood and how he was reaching out and grabbing onto the bottom of Chrom's jacket like a lifeline—

"Can I have another one?" Robin asked, snapping Chrom back to the present. He had finished his sandwich and was looking at Chrom expectantly.

"Yeah. Sure," said Chrom. He handed Robin his soda back and picked the plate up again, taking it back to the kitchenette.

"Are you hungry?" he asked Robin as he prepared another sandwich.

"A little."

"That's good," Chrom said.

"Why?" Robin wanted to know.

"It's— well, you need to keep eating," Chrom said, not sure exactly how to explain it. "It's not good when you have no appetite."

"Hmm."

A minute later, and Chrom brought Robin his second sandwich; he made sure to take the can of soda away from him first, just in case. Robin began eating it in his own peculiar manner as Chrom stuffed the last piece of his own meal into his mouth with a couple of swigs of his coke.

"You have jelly on your chin," Chrom remarked. Robin paused eating, looking slightly confused. "Hold on," Chrom continued; "I'll get a napkin for you."

When he returned, Robin had bitten his sandwich in a round pattern so that only a small circle of it remained. Chrom reached with the napkin to wipe Robin's face for him, but Robin turned his cheek, making an annoyed noise as he put the last of his sandwich into his mouth.

"What?" said Chrom, amused. Robin managed to pull off a spectacular pout while chewing.

Chrom reached for Robin's face again as he swallowed his food, and this time was successful at wiping it off, though Robin squirmed a little and whined. Chrom felt as though he was trying to clean off a reluctant, wriggling child.

Robin made a little complaining noise that sounded like "Wehh" as Chrom took his left hand and wiped it off with the napkin too, and Chrom had to laugh.

"How old are you? Four?" he teased.

" 'Mm not," Robin mumbled.

"All right, then," said Chrom; "if you're not, do you remember which side this is, then?"

"Muh?" Robin made a questioning sort of noise.

"Is this your left side or your right side?" Chrom continued, holding up Robin's left hand.

Robin studied the hand for a moment, glancing between it and the other one that was curled up next to his chest, before admitting guiltily; "I don't remember."

"Okay. This is your left side," Chrom said patiently. Robin hummed in reply and leaned his head on Chrom's shoulder, watching.

"This side is your right," Chrom continued, dropping Robin's left hand and reaching across him to pick up the other. "The weaker side. The side with the scrapes."

"The side with the scrapes," Robin repeated mechanically, as they looked at the scabs that formed the rough shape of a _V_ on the back of his hand.

"Right side," Chrom reiterated, giving the hand a little shake. "Left side." He put it back down and picked up the left again.

Robin didn't respond.

"Are you still awake over there?" Chrom asked. He rolled his shoulder a little bit and Robin grumbled, but stubbornly kept his head on it.

"No sleeping," Chrom went on. "I'm teaching you stuff. Pay attention." He waved around Robin's hand for emphasis.

"I'm not sleeping," Robin insisted, but his eyes were closed.

"No _going_ to sleep," Chrom clarified.

"Why not?" Robin asked, sounding so disappointed that Chrom had to chuckle.

"Come on. Which side is this again?" Chrom shook around Robin's left hand a little.

"I don't care," Robin mumbled.

Chrom sighed. He was fighting an uphill battle.

Supposedly, Robin's constant drowsiness was because of the painkillers he was taking. He was supposed to get more alert when he went off of them. In the meantime, though, getting him to stay awake or to focus very long on something was a bit of a chore.

"Come on," said Chrom, "let's watch that movie. That'll help keep you awake." He reached forward for the television remote that he'd left on the coffee table and turned the Grima movie back on, turning the volume up.

"Loud," Robin muttered into Chrom's shoulder.

"It's to keep you awake."

"_Loud_," Robin whined.

Chrom sighed and turned the volume down a little. "Better?" he asked.

Robin grunted.

"If you drool on my shirt, I'm gonna be really mad at you," Chrom remarked as Robin's short hair tickled against his neck.

On the screen, Grima let out a triumphant roar as he swatted away a helicopter like a bug. Chrom still held Robin's left hand in his, now resting in his lap, and neither of them showed much desire to let go.

It was strange to think that just a few weeks ago, they had been complete strangers. And at the end of their chance encounter, they could have parted ways again and remained strangers still. Even Chrom didn't know why he had kept Robin in his life when he hadn't had to, why he had taken in a stranger like family, a stranger who knew nothing but his own name; when he could have let it end on the first day in the hospital, when that nurse came up to him in the ICU waiting room and asked him if he was the one who had brought in the John Doe.

Maybe it was the way Robin had looked lying in the big electric hospital bed, covered in bruises and gashes, alone in the world but for the machines and flanked by an IV bag with a line that wound to his wrist and a piece of tape covering where it burrowed into the flesh; with tubes coming out of his nose to help him breathe, with the blanket pulled smooth over his chest and tucked in neatly beneath him as evidence of how he had not moved under his own power for days.

Maybe it was the way Robin had fixated on Chrom after he woke up from all the surgeries, the way he saw Chrom's visitor name tag at the hospital and laboriously sounded it out; how for the first day or two Chrom's name was the only word they could get out of him, how whenever Chrom entered the hospital room Robin brightened and called his name and so reminded Chrom of a small child.

Maybe it was the way Robin had held his hand so tightly during the chaos of the ride in the ambulance, as the EMTs worked on him and Robin wouldn't let go; wouldn't let go of his hand as though that was enough to drive away the pain written on his face, as if that was enough to make everything all right.

Maybe it was because the staff at the hospital insisted Chrom didn't have to do this, that Robin would be taken care of at a nursing home or some other facility—but as soon as Chrom heard that he knew, he knew what he had to do because he knew there was nothing worse than not having a family to tie you down, nothing was worse than drifting alone in a system, he knew because it had almost happened to him when his parents died and the only thing that had made bouncing from foster home to foster home bearable was the fact that he'd had his sisters with him.

Robin shifted against Chrom's shoulder and gave his hand a little squeeze before relaxing again. Chrom held it back a little tighter, smiling a bit to himself. It occurred to him that he had homework he should be doing before his next class, but... it could wait.

Maybe the reason he'd taken Robin in was because of all the times Robin had asked Chrom to just sit beside the hospital bed and hold his hand, and Chrom had never been able to say no; and then they had watched the silly Grima movies, or Chrom read aloud from the magazines he had brought in, even though Robin probably didn't take in most of the words; or Robin simply slept, and as Chrom held his hand he felt something grow between them.

They may have begun as strangers meeting by chance, but it hadn't taken long for a bond to tie them together.

* * *

My god, this chapter was fluffier than I remembered. It doesn't stay this way for long though.


	2. Cuddling

_How many peppermints worth 45g a pound should be mixed with chocolates worth 100g a pound to produce a mixture worth 80g a pound?_

Chrom chewed on the clip for his mechanical pencil, tapping his foot on one of the legs of the tiny kitchen table as he thought over the math problem. He hated word problems. He especially hated word problems that involved food. They just made him hungry. Weren't the regular sort of word problems evil enough?

Behind him, a deep man's voice was droning from the television; it was some sort of documentary or other. After rewatching them for what had seemed to Chrom a dozen times each, Robin had finally gotten tired of the Grima movies, or at least the ones Chrom owned on DVD, and had moved on to watching other things.

Having the TV on when Chrom was trying to do his homework was a little bit distracting; but he'd had plenty of practice over the years, doing homework in less than quiet environments. Good thing too, as watching television and sleeping was still all Robin did all day. Chrom had so far had no luck convincing him to do anything else with his time.

Chrom leaned over the math problem spread on the table, chin in hand. All right, so... in order to solve this, didn't he need to make a fraction? That sounded about right. If the 45g went on the top and the 100g went on the bottom—or did the 80g go there—

He heard a sort of snorting sound come from behind him, and at first he thought it was coming from the television until it happened again, and then he realized it was Robin, and that it was the sound of him snoring.

"Are you sleeping?" he asked with a grin; through, the question was a bit silly in its premise, now that he thought about it. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Robin was lying on the couch half-curled up in a ball, his face in a pillow, not even _trying_ to watching the TV screen.

When Chrom called his name and still got no reply, he got up, scraping the kitchen chair backwards across the thin carpet, and turned off the TV before gently shaking Robin's shoulder. Robin groaned and curled up tighter.

"If you're just gonna sleep, you should go to bed," Chrom told him. "It's late."

"What time is it?" Robin mumbled into the pillow.

"Eleven...thirty-something," Chrom answered, glancing at the analog clock hanging on the backside of the kitchen cabinets.

Robin made more grumbling noises in reply.

"Come on," Chrom persisted. "I'll help you get up."

He took hold of Robin's arm and pulled him upright into a sitting position, Robin swaying a little bit and looking like he could easily flop back over again. There were wrinkles from the pillow pressed into his face.

"C'mon, let's go," said Chrom, trying not to laugh at Robin's half-asleep appearance. "Here's your cane..." He grabbed the quad cane that stood by the end of the couch and set it next to Robin's feet, guiding Robin's left hand to the rubberized handle.

"Ready to stand up?" he asked.

Robin merely sighed; Chrom gave him a little poke to the top of the head, and Robin grumbled and swatted Chrom's hand away.

"C'mon, let's stand up," said Chrom, grinning a little. He shoved the coffee table away from the couch with his foot to give them some extra room and hoisted Robin to his feet, hooking his elbow under Robin's right arm.

"I can walk," Robin insisted, leaning on his cane as he wriggled out of Chrom's grip.

"I know," said Chrom, "but..."

"How'm I 'sposed to get better at it if you tote me around everywhere?" said Robin. Chrom had to admit, he had a point. Leaning on his cane with his good side, Robin was getting better at walking every day, and his gait now lacked the heavy swaying sort of limp it had displayed only a week ago.

"It's not _toting_," Chrom said, nonetheless; "I just help a little bit..."

"I don't need it."

"I just get a little nervous when you do it alone, is all."

"Well, don't. I'm not gonna break or anything."

Chrom would have liked to argue that last point, but instead merely sighed and reluctantly settled for hovering nearby as Robin made his way to the bedroom.

Their apartment had only one bedroom, and in it only one bed. Chrom had first gotten this apartment when he lived alone, and he didn't have the resources to spare to switch to a larger one, or buy a second bed; not when there was a solution as simple as having himself sleep on the couch every night until something else could be worked out. He didn't really mind. Though, there was a somewhat funny story to tell from when Robin had first come back from the hospital and had still been less than lucid, and had been _so_ confused as to why they weren't going to share the bed...

Robin reached the bed and sat himself upon the edge of the mattress, on the right-hand side of the bed; Robin always slept on the right side, so that when he lay on his back, his good arm was on the side of the nightstand. Chrom rolled open the dresser drawers and pulled out Robin's pajamas, tossing them next to their owner onto a comforter that was still a little wrinkled from last night—Chrom wasn't the neatest bed-maker.

"Did you take your meds for tonight yet?" Chrom asked.

"Um... I think so," said Robin, but then added; "maybe... I think?"

Chrom reached into the canvas bag that hung from the cane's curved handle and contained some of Robin's essential belongings and pulled out a plastic pill case with two little labeled compartments for each day of the week, one for morning and one for evening. Holding the case up to the light, Chrom saw that there were still the shadows of pills inside for the evening dose for that day.

"You didn't take them," he announced.

"Oh..."

Chrom left to get a glass of water for Robin to take them with, and when he returned with a glass filled with water from the tap, Robin's T-shirt was over his head and his arms were halfway out the sleeves.

"Let me help you with that," said Chrom, putting the glass down on the nightstand as Robin wrestled with the shirt.

"I got it," Robin insisted, but his right arm was curled inwards towards himself, and he couldn't get it free of the fabric. Chrom tugged the sleeve free of the arm and pulled the shirt the rest of the way off of Robin's head, but then Robin was frowning at him.

"I said I got it."

"It's okay to ask for help sometimes," said Chrom, for what felt like the thousandth time.

"I didn't need help that time," Robin said quietly, speaking to his navel.

Chrom thought that this was debatable, but decided to keep that to himself. He flicked the little door on tonight's pill compartment open and held it out for Robin to take, before picking the glass of water back up off the nightstand.

"Soon you can switch to taking just the aspirin," Chrom remarked as Robin tipped the pill box upside-down above his mouth, shaking the pills out and down into his mouth— it was a rather unorthodox technique, but easier for him than trying to fish the pills out with his finger while holding the box with the same hand— before dropping the container into his lap and taking the glass of water Chrom offered him.

"Hmm," Robin commented as he swallowed.

"Isn't that exciting?" Chrom continued. "Getting off the painkiller things, like, completely? They make you kinda... loopy."

Robin laughed a little bit. "I guess," he said.

Chrom took the pill container and the glass back and dropped the former back into the bag before leaving for the kitchen to put away the latter. When he came back, a yawning Robin had already pulled his cotton nightshirt onto the left side of his body and was currently threading his lame arm through the opposite sleeve.

"Do you need help?" Chrom asked.

"No," said Robin, though Chrom thought he looked like he could use it. He decided to defer to Robin's judgment this time and instead reached into Robin's bag to double-check his schedule.

Evening meds—he could check those off now... He grabbed a pencil from inside the bag to do so. Evening exercises—it looked like Robin hadn't done all of them, but Chrom supposed that if he did extra tomorrow, it amounted to the same thing...

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he saw that Robin had finished putting on the shirt—though it remained open and unbuttoned—and had shifted himself to the edge of the mattress to stand against the floor slightly and slide his pants to his ankles.

"Are you sure you don't need help?" Chrom asked as Robin kicked the pants away from himself. Robin's partially-standing position was making Chrom nervous.

"I'm sure," said Robin sharply.

"Okay," said Chrom reluctantly.

Robin held out his pajama bottoms by the band and lifted his foot up to put it through, balancing in a way that Chrom thought was rather precarious. He collected Robin's pants from the floor and his T-shirt from where it had been discarded on the comforter and threw them into the hamper, but he kept an eye on Robin just in case he needed help.

Robin, however, pulled the pajama pants on without incident, and was soon sitting on the bed properly again, attempting to button up his pajama top. His right hand was really only useful as a sort of blunt instrument against which he could push or lean things, but such techniques weren't useful for delicate tasks such as this.

Chrom reached over and started closing up the shirt for him, but Robin made an indignant noise and swatted his hands away. "Let me do it!" he insisted.

Chrom sighed, but complied. He sat on the bed next to Robin, folding his arms.

"I don't mind helping, you know," he told Robin.

"That's nice," said Robin in an offhand tone.

"It'll be _so_ much faster if I do it," Chrom continued, as Robin continued working at the same button he had been wrestling with from the beginning. "I could just—"

"I said no!" Robin snapped.

Chrom watched the finicky operation for a little while longer, but it was downright _maddening_, having to watch him slowly struggle with the button.

"Why're you so obsessed with doing everything yourself?" Chrom wanted to know. "It takes you forever—"

"I don't care," Robin huffed. "I want to do it."

Chrom lost his patience and made a move to begin helping again, but Robin pushed his hands away.

"Leave me alone!" he said, glaring.

"Hey, be nice!" Chrom said sternly, frowning. He reached for Robin's shirt again but—

"I said _leave me alone!_" Robin shouted, slapping Chrom's hands away.

"The hell?!" Chrom burst out. Robin was staring at him, looking furious.

"Leave me alone!" Robin growled, his upper lip curling up like an ugly sneer.

"Robin...?" Chrom asked him uncertainly. Robin had a strange scrunched-up look on his face and was breathing rapidly.

"Leave me alone!" he told Chrom again, higher pitched this time.

Chrom tried reaching out to do... something—he didn't really have a plan, he just wanted to try and calm Robin down somehow, maybe try hugging him or at least just put a hand on his shoulder—but Robin snarled in anger and knocked the arm aside.

"_I said leave me alone!_"

"Robin, what's wrong?" Chrom asked helplessly, utterly lost.

"_What's wrong?!_" Robin cried hysterically, as if offended by the very question. "You know very well what's _wrong!_"

"I don't, actually—"

"Just—Leave me alone! I said leave me alone!" Robin yelled, heaving himself up into the middle of the bed and curling up facing away from Chrom, hiding his face in a pillow.

"Robin, are you okay?" Chrom asked cautiously, wondering where the hell this... well, he hated to call it a _tantrum_, but that was the best word for these recent dramatic mood swings of Robin's— had come from this time.

"Go away!" came Robin's voice from the pillow.

Chrom tried laying a hand on Robin's shoulder in an attempt to calm him, but Robin growled and lashed out backwards with his arm.

"Go away!" he said again.

"Robin— ..." Chrom began, but didn't know what to say, or what to do. Maybe he _should_ just leave Robin alone. But the idea just rubbed Chrom the wrong way. Robin looked... sad, Chrom thought, curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed. He didn't want to leave Robin alone like that.

Chrom scooted a little closer and lay down on the bed next to Robin; and, before Robin had a chance to push him away, wrapped his arms around him and hugged him.

"_Chrom!_" Robin cried indignantly, attempting to push him off.

"Why're you in such a bad mood all the time?" Chrom asked, not letting go.

"None of your business!"

"Is too, if I'm the one getting grouched at..."

"I don't care!" Robin snapped. "Get off of me!"

"I think you need a hug right now," Chrom persisted.

"_Get off me!_" Robin yelled into the pillow, squirming.

"Fine," Chrom sighed, letting go and sitting up. Robin still would not face him.

"Go away," Robin repeated.

"All right," said Chrom in defeat.

He slid off the bed and repositioned Robin's cane a little closer to the edge of the bed, the bag swinging from the handle from the motion, before heading to the door. He paused with his finger on the lightswitch; Robin still had not moved, and was still curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed.

"Good night, Robin," said Chrom quietly, flicking out the light and closing the door behind him.

* * *

It's really awkward trying to fulfill the more romantic prompts when there is still no romance to speak of. I'm going to have to fudge a few of the future ones a little.


	3. Gaming

"I'm home," Chrom called as he opened the door, and for the first time in weeks, the sound of the television didn't greet him.

_Okay_ was all Robin had said when Chrom had announced his intention yesterday to disconnect the television, shrugging as though watching the damn device hadn't been the sole activity with which he filled the hours and he couldn't care less about its absence.

Honestly, Chrom had been bracing for another outburst, or to at least be forced to hide the television paraphernalia in places Robin couldn't reach, but none of that had been necessary. Not that Chrom should be _complaining_ about any of this, but all the same...

As he removed his boots and tossed his helmet and jacket into the closet, Chrom couldn't see Robin on the couch in the living room. He didn't appear to be at the kitchen table, either, or in the kitchenette; and the bathroom door was open and the interior dark.

"You're not sleeping, are you?" Chrom called to the bedroom.

"No," Robin's voice answered.

Pushing the bedroom door open revealed that the room was illuminated by the dim November sunlight pouring in from the windows. And yet despite the weather, the ceiling fan above the bed was turned on, the blades spinning lazily.

Robin was fully dressed and lying stretched out on top of the covers, lame arm curled up on top of his chest and opposite hand clasping the wrist, in a sort of imitation of how other people might fold their hands over their stomachs while at rest. He appeared to be merely watching the fan, not moving when Chrom opened the door.

"Have you been sleeping?" Chrom asked him.

"No," Robin replied in a flat tone Chrom didn't like, not twitching a muscle to further acknowledge Chrom's presence.

"What've you been doing, then?"

"Nothing," Robin replied, still watching the fan as though it was the most interesting thing in the whole apartment.

"No, seriously. What're you doing?"

"Nothing," Robin repeated.

"Are you... watching the fan?" Chrom asked cautiously.

"Yes."

"Not all day, though," said Chrom with a laugh, until Robin spoke again.

"All day."

"What...?" Chrom had to bite back his first instinct to blurt out '_That's pretty weird, you know_;' interacting with Robin these days was a bit like prodding an armed bomb, and he was still slowly learning how to watch what he said. He settled instead for "Any... particular reason why?"

"No reason," Robin told the fan in that awful flat voice.

"Is this because I said no more TV?"

"No."

Chrom sighed in annoyance as Robin steadfastly continued staring at the fanblades rotating above him.

"Can you just... stop that?" he asked Robin, trying to keep his voice level. "Please? It's kind of..." ..._weird. ...freaking me out._ "...boring, right?"

"No."

"What's so... I mean," Chrom caught himself quickly; "wouldn't it be more interesting to do... something else? Anything else...?"

"No."

"Are you going to look at me while we're talking?" Chrom wanted to know, starting to get annoyed.

"No."

"Can you say anything besides 'no'?!"

"Yes."

Chrom groaned and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "That's not any better!"

"What is it you want, then?" Robin asked impassively, in the manner of a bored cashier at a fast food restaurant inquiring whether Chrom wanted a medium or large order.

"Just... I don't know," Chrom sighed. "Just... for you to... _do_ something?"

"I _am_ doing something."

"You know that's not what I mean!" Chrom snapped, raising his voice. He immediately regretted it. "...I'm sorry," he apologized quickly.

Robin ignored him.

At least Robin wasn't angry, Chrom thought to himself. But angry Robin, that was something that Chrom was starting to get a handle on. He was starting to see the outbursts coming so it wasn't such a surprise when Robin suddenly lashed out, and he was getting better at learning what set Robin off. But this... this was just _weird_.

This whole thing _had_ to be Robin's idea of revenge for taking away the TV. Chrom didn't see any other explanation.

"Have you eaten yet today?" Chrom tried asking.

"No."

Chrom would have liked to say he was surprised, but honestly, this was par for the course for Robin's habits when left by himself.

"Why don't you go eat something?" he suggested. "You'll feel better."

"I feel fine."

Chrom was tempted to point out that people who were 'fine' didn't have staring contests with a ceiling fan. Instead he prodded, "Aren't you hungry at all?"

"I don't feel like eating."

"That's not what I asked."

Robin didn't answer. Chrom sighed and walked over to Robin's side of the bed, sitting down on it and looking down at the man who was still doing his best to pretend that he was alone in the room.

"Do you want a peanut butter jelly sandwich?" Chrom offered. "You haven't had one of those in a while..."

"No," Robin answered shortly.

"Really?" said Chrom, a little surprised. "You used to love those..."

"Not anymore."

"Finally got tired of 'em, huh?" Chrom commented.

"Something like that."

An uneasy silence fell between them. Robin continued watching the fan as Chrom wished to himself that he knew what to do. All he had was a steadily growing list of what _not_ to do when Robin got into one of his moods.

After a few minutes, Chrom came to a decision. Original reasons for disconnecting the television be damned— Robin's brain could rot all it wanted— anything was better than... _this_.

"If I reconnect the TV," Chrom proposed, "will you go and watch TV with me?"

"No," Robin stated flatly, and the idea that Chrom was _so_ sure would work was shot down in an instant.

"Not even the Grima movies?" he pleaded, not caring just now how desperate he sounded.

"No."

Chrom got up from his seat on the mattress, circled around to the unoccupied side of the bed, and flopped down on it next to Robin with a grunt, rolling over onto his back to see what the hell was so damn interesting about this fan.

_If you can't beat 'em, join 'em_, came the saying from somewhere in the back of his head.

Well, it was kind of mesmerizing, he had to give it that. He could probably watch it for a little while, himself. But still...

"Robin, this thing isn't _that_ interesting."

Robin didn't answer.

"Is this really what you've been doing all day?" Chrom continued, as they watched the fan together.

"Yeah."

"Damn..."

Chrom turned over onto his side to face Robin, propping himself up on an elbow.

"Why don't we do something else together?" he proposed. "Like..." He trailed off, not sure what to follow it with.

"Like what?" Robin asked, and—praise Naga, he actually turned his head and looked at Chrom this time!

"Um, how about we play a video game?" Chrom suggested.

"I can't," Robin reminded him, and turned his head back to watching the fan; and Chrom cursed himself inwardly for being so _stupid_ as to forget that Robin's paralyzed hand prevented him from using a video game controller.

"I mean—" Chrom desperately tried to regain ground— "how about a board game? Do you want to play a board game with me?"

"A board game?" Robin repeated, and he was looking at Chrom again.

"Yeah, a board game," Chrom plowed on, encouraged. "Like— like—" he wracked his brains— did he even _have_ any board games here in the apartment?— no wait, he had that travel chess set he never used— "like, chess?"

"Chess?" Robin looked to be thinking it over; "I don't know how to play chess," he admitted.

"It's okay," Chrom said quickly; "I'm really bad at it, so we'll be even." He chuckled and Robin actually smiled a little bit. "I'll teach you, it'll be fun. C'mon, wanna play it with me?"

"Okay," said Robin, caving at last, and Chrom had to resist the urge to cheer at the success.

"I'll go get it set up," he said instead, rolling off the bed to his feet and heading off to find the chess set. "Won't hurt you to eat something!" he added over his shoulder as he went, unable to resist the temptation to push his luck a little bit.

After a little bit of searching, the chess set turned out to be hiding in one of the cardboard boxes full of Chrom's things that he seldom used and had never found room to unpack when he first moved here. He spread the cheap printed board out on the coffee table and arranged the plastic pieces out on it; some of them had trouble standing up straight due to excessive seams from their molding that ran across their bases, and Chrom shaved them off best he could with the pocketknife that he wore everywhere on his belt.

The knife had been a present from Emm for his 16th birthday, and when the three of them had still been together, Lissa had often teased him about how it was so he could be prepared at all times for both the zombie apocalypse and for any apples that needed slicing. Not that it had stopped her from bringing him all manner of jars, cans, and those damn impenetrable plastic packaging contraptions that too many products came in these days for him to open for her.

"Are you ready?" he called to Robin as he set a pillow on the floor next to the coffee table, opposite the couch, for himself to sit on so Robin could have the couch. Robin was currently milling about in the kitchenette, but as far as Chrom could tell, he wasn't actually getting any food. "I've got it all set up."

"Okay," said Robin, making his patient way over to where Chrom was.

"You sit on the couch," said Chrom when Robin paused in front of him, seemingly unsure what was expected of him.

Robin seated himself opposite Chrom and looked over the game board.

"I think white goes first," said Chrom. "So you can be white. Because that's, um, an advantage."

"How do I play, though?" Robin wanted to know.

"Umm." Chrom wondered where to begin. "So, like... you move these pieces—we take turn moving pieces, you can only move one piece a turn. Okay?"

"Okay."

"So, the objective... You win the game if you capture the king, that's this one with the crown. Well, it kinda looks like a crown—Well, anyway, you capture... pieces by, like, bonking them like this..." Robin laughed a little at Chrom's imprecise terminology, and Chrom laughed along with him, pleased that Robin now appeared to be engaged and in a good mood.

"Okay, so," Chrom continued, "each piece has a different way of moving, like, they have a pattern... type thing, to how they move. Like, the pawns, that's the little guys, you get like a million pawns, they can only move, uh, straight ahead two spaces."

"Okay." Robin had his chin in his hand as he watched Chrom point out the pieces.

"These are the rooks—wait, no, those are the rooks, these are called bishops—well, it's not important what they're called— anyway, the guys with the little pointy hats can only move diagonally. But uh, they can move as far as they want diagonally, y'know? Like, there's no limit? In one turn? ...To how far they can go? Y'know? ...Am I making any sense at all?"

"Kind of," said Robin with an amused smile.

"Okay," Chrom plowed on; "so, rooks are the ones that look like castle towers, and they're the same as bishops, except they only go in straight lines. Also there's this weird thing they can do with the king where they can, uh, trade places or something, but I don't remember how it works so let's pretend it doesn't exist, okay?"

Robin laughed, and Chrom grinned sheepishly.

"This is the queen," he continued, "and she's the best piece ever, because she's like a rook and a bishop combined into one. It's really bad when you lose your queen because she's really useful. I always lose mine right away." He chuckled a little bit at the memories of his own incompetence.

"And these are the knights," he finished. "They move in a really weird pattern that I can never remember. It's shaped like a letter, though. Shaped like, uh, a... oh right, an L. So long as they make an L shape, you're good."

"An L shape," Robin repeated. "Okay,"

"Anyway," Chrom concluded, "I think that's everything... You go first."

Robin's eyes darted about the board as he sat with his chin in his hand, and he continued to take it in over what must have been at least a full minute of silence, perhaps two, before Chrom felt a need to speak up.

"It's just the first move," he told Robin. "It's not that important."

"Just..." Robin said slowly; "I feel like... there's a right move in here _somewhere_, and if I think about it long enough..."

"Hey, c'mon, it's just me. I suck at this game, you're probably gonna kick my ass no matter what you do," said Chrom with a self-defacing shrug and a laugh.

"If you say so," said Robin, sounding doubtful, moving a pawn forward.

Chrom cheerfully chose one of his own pawns at random and advanced it. Sometimes, having no idea what the hell you were doing and fully embracing that fact was downright liberating.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, you can't jump your own dudes," Chrom said suddenly as Robin was contemplating his next move. "Except knights. They can do that. 'Cause they're weird."

"Oh— alright, okay..."

"Sorry, should have told you this earlier."

"It's fine."

"Oh yeah, and you say 'Checkmate' when you're about to win, but only if there's no way for the other person's king to escape— you just say 'Check' if their king can get out of it. Like, as a warning that their king is in danger."

"That's just stupid," Robin remarked. "Warning them, I mean."

Chrom laughed. "That's what's in the rules."

They took turns nudging pawns for a while, Robin taking much longer to decide his moves than Chrom and looking a little frustrated each time he committed to one, until their pawns began to meet in the middle.

"When do we start using other pieces?" Robin asked.

"Uh, you can do that anytime," said Chrom. "You don't have to do what I do. Hell, I don't even particularly recommend it." He chuckled.

Robin thought about his next move for a long time, looking progressively more and more anxious, until at last he asked, "Which should I move first?"

"I dunno, that's your decision to make!" said Chrom, amused.

Robin didn't look satisfied with this answer.

"Stop overthinking it and just pick a move," said Chrom. "That's what I do. 'Course, I also usually lose, but..." He chuckled again.

"No, I want to think it through," Robin insisted.

"Well, okay, just don't take all day."

For a while, Robin seemed to be doing all right. Though much to his own surprise, Chrom was able to successfully take several of Robin's pieces without too much trouble, despite his own professed incompetence. He supposed it had something to do with Robin's inexperience, and he attempted to explain where Robin had gone wrong each time— which wasn't always easy, as he didn't always fully understand why himself.

"I just wish—if only I could just think straight for _two seconds_," Robin complained after losing his second rook, his forehead resting in his palm.

"Who's stopping you?" Chrom teased, thinking that this sounded an awful lot like an excuse.

"I just, I can't _concentrate_," Robin lamented, rubbing his hand over his forehead and up into the hair above it.

"Do you need me to be more quiet?" Chrom asked.

"No, you're fine," Robin assured him. "It's just, it's never quiet, it's—there's this... ringing in my ears, all the time..."

"Oh... That must be really annoying."

"Gives me the worst headaches," Robin agreed.

_That could explain a lot_, Chrom couldn't help thinking. But instead of vocalizing that, he commented; "My dad had it. The ear-ringing thing. I remember he used to complain about it a lot, before he died."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up..."

"Nah, it's okay, he was kind of an asshole," said Chrom, laughing it off. "We're better off without him."

That was the way he preferred to think of his father. The easiest way. But Robin still looked uncomfortable, despite Chrom's insistences.

"It's your move," he prompted Robin.

Robin's play grew more irregular, more risky, as the game progressed. He rested his head on his hand, his thumb and forefinger pressing an L shape into his forehead, the rest of the fingers shading his eyes from Chrom's view as he surveyed the board. Chrom was starting to get concerned that Robin was taking this game too seriously. Which made him almost reluctant to say what he had to say soon enough;

"Check," Chrom announced, hardly able to believe it himself.

"What?!" Robin looked dumbfounded. "How did you... Where did—did that bishop even _come_ from?!"

"You can still get out of this," Chrom reminded Robin as the latter tugged at his hair in frustration, which had already grown to what must have been a couple of inches long since his accident. "There's three ways out. Do you see them all?"

"I..." Robin's eyes were scanning the board; "I see one... If I move my king here, right?"

"My knight'll get him."

Robin groaned and covered his face with his hand.

"Here," began Chrom, taking pity on him; "I'll show you—"

"Why can't I _get_ this game?!" Robin burst out in frustration.

"It's okay," Chrom reassured him. "Not everyone is good at chess..."

"I—but," Robin insisted; "I feel like, I, I _could_ be good! If I could just... If I could just think straight! I don't know, it's like there's this fog in my brain..."

"Okay... it's just a game, okay?" Chrom reminded him patiently. "We don't have to play if you don't want to."

"No, no—I want to play..."

"All right..."

With Chrom's help, Robin's king was guided back out of danger, and the game resumed. Chrom was soon confronted by a question with no right answer: whether to hold back when he saw an opening and risk insulting Robin's intelligence, or to play as well as he could and risk upsetting Robin instead?

Unable to bring himself to take out Robin's queen after an opening presented itself, Chrom decided to take the former route. If Robin noticed, he didn't give any indication. He was currently running the fingers of his left hand through his hair as he stared down the pieces of the board. Chrom wasn't sure how worried he should be by this behavior.

"I can't _think_ anymore!" Robin suddenly shouted in frustration, slamming the knight he had been holding back onto the board with a crack and making Chrom jump.

"Are... are you feeling okay?" Chrom asked cautiously.

"I'm fine. Just peachy," Robin muttered. His upper lip was beginning to curl back into a grimace, his nostrils flaring. Chrom recognized the warning signs.

"Do you want a hug?" he suggested. It had taken a while, but he had learned to ask first.

"Yeah," Robin said quietly, avoiding his gaze.

Chrom got up and circled the coffee table to sit on the couch next to Robin, drawing him into his arms. He tried rubbing circles into Robin's back with his hands, like Emm used to do whenever he was upset as a kid, when he had felt small and lost in the world.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he said after a minute, as Robin's breathing continued to feel abnormal somehow, against Chrom's chest; rapid and a little... shuddering? Not that Chrom was any kind of expert.

"I just..." Robin began, but nothing more came out. Chrom resisted the temptation to prompt him for more and instead just waited.

"I feel like," Robin continued slowly after a moment, "like, I should be able to do things, you know?"

"Like what?"

"Like... play chess," said Robin, "or, or... just remember things, or... I don't know, I just—I feel like I could play this game, but I, I just can't think straight!"

"Maybe it's because you're hungry," Chrom suggested.

"But it doesn't matter, I'm _always_ like this," Robin said, and it came out as almost a wail, it was so high pitched and distressed, and he was breathing very fast now.

"Just try to calm down, okay?" said Chrom in what he hoped was a gentle voice.

Robin wrapped his good arm up around Chrom's neck and buried his face into Chrom's shoulder. His breathing was still coming fast and shallow. Gods, what if he was hyperventilating? That was bad, right? Weren't you supposed to put a paper bag on the person's face or something? Chrom didn't know what he should do...

"Are you okay?" Chrom asked him nervously.

"No," Robin admitted, sounding hoarse.

Chrom continued rubbing Robin's back, hoping that would be enough to calm him.

"Why does everything have to be so _hard?_" Robin said into Chrom's shirt in a strained voice.

"I don't know," Chrom answered. "But it could always be worse, right?"

Maybe that hadn't been the best thing to say, because just then Robin's hand fisted a handful of Chrom's shirt and his breathing became ragged and _oh Gods_ was he crying?

Chrom tried rocking him and making gentle shushing sounds, like he remembered Emm doing when Lissa was a toddler and wouldn't stop howling. He had been hoping to prevent a complete meltdown, but when he tried it, Robin pushed himself out of Chrom's arms and glared at him.

"I'm not a baby!" he declared angrily.

_Well you sure act like one sometimes_, Chrom couldn't help thinking to himself as he attempted to repair the situation with a quick "I know that, I'm sorry—"

"Oh, you're _sorry!_" said Robin derisively. His eyes were wet, Chrom noticed. "That makes _everything_ better!"

"What do you want me to _do_ then, Robin?!" Chrom burst out in frustration.

"I don't know—try doing nothing, why don't you!" Robin yelled.

"You really want me to do _nothing?!_" Chrom shouted, losing his temper as Robin touched a nerve. "Do you know all the things I do for you, and instead of _thanks_ I get all this... this..." The anger was as quick to leave him as it had been to seize him, and he recovered himself as rapidly as he could.

"I'm sorry," he said lamely, "I shouldn't have—"

"Well, you did," Robin said coldly.

"I'm _trying_, Robin!" Chrom snapped, losing out to his temper again. "What the hell am I supposed to _do_ here?! You're just impossible!"

Robin turned his face away and stood up without a word, storming back to the bedroom, cane pounding the carpet with each step.

"I'm sorry!" Chrom called after him, anger ebbed; but he knew that the words were said so often, they had become cheap. Robin's disappearance from Chrom's line of sight was punctuated by the sound of the door being slammed.

Chrom watched him go. He slid sideways to lie on the couch and kneaded his forehead with his palms, grumbling in frustration.

It seemed like no matter what he did, no matter what he tried, he fucked it up when it came to Robin. There just wasn't a way to win.

Why couldn't it go back to how it was when they first came back from the hospital? When Robin was friendly and cooperative, and didn't start screaming at you when you said the wrong thing? When Robin was downright, well... cuddly?

_Because I was drugged out of my damn mind back then_, Robin had said when Chrom had asked him this very question in frustration, just a few days ago.

Chrom felt guilty for missing the old Robin. He knew that Robin coming off the drugs was a good thing, even if he had been _so_ much easier to handle back then. He knew it was wrong to wish sometimes for a more out-of-it Robin, but...

As Robin's caregiver... wasn't he entitled to a few breaks? Did everything have to be so damn _complicated?_

Chrom peeled himself off the couch to go fix himself lunch. As nice as it would have been to lie there all day—like _some people_—he had things to do.

The door to the bedroom seemed to possess its own presence. Chrom's eye was drawn to it as he walked past. Somewhere on the other side, Robin was probably staring at that stupid fan again.

Chrom had reached the kitchenette when he suddenly remembered that Robin had said that he hadn't eaten yet today. He circled back to the bedroom door.

"I'm making some extra food for you, okay?" Chrom told the door. "Just in case you get hungry later."

There was no response.

Not that he had expected to receive one.

* * *

I thought the 'gaming' prompt was a great opportunity to play around a little bit with the "The tactician is always instinctively amazing at chess" trope you always see. You know you're in trouble when _Chrom_ of all people hands you your ass in chess.

Falchion is a pocketknife. Snicker. I just had to incorporate Falchy somehow... and Chrom totally seems like one of those guys who has a Swiss Army knife with about 25 different attachments who everyone else goes to whenever they need help opening something.


End file.
